WS ratings highest since NY was involved in the late 90's-2001. NFL ratings still taking a beating.

A sign that we're entering a kinder/gentler time? TV has been credited (or blamed) for football exploding in popularity circa 1970. Problem is, the tech also coincides with the Me Generation's nascent 70's striving. And we all know that increased striving means lower empathy and greater decadence. In the nadir of striving (1940-1970), baseball was the most popular sport while the other sports were niche fare. Especially the more violent ones. Boxing is easier to analyze; the ratings and money exploded in the 70's even though the broadcasting of matches was quite similar in the 50's/60's to what it was in the 70's. The main difference of course being color, but early live color TV had much lower fidelity than B&W. In fact, mid-century B&W footage is easier to watch IMO than god-awful 70's color video recordings.

Teams per league in 1965:MLB: 20NBA: 9NHL: 6NFL: 14 (note that a competing, equally talented league was started in 1960)

There's also a greed/status aspect to sports, too. Beginning in the 70's, the number of teams shot up as rich strivers became anxious to have a team (and strivers of an area wanted to have a team of rich athletes to cheer on).

The NFL has really gotten audacious over the last half decade, having games in London and/or Mexico while threatening to move a team to a foreign market (note that every league will not expand beyond 30 teams because the dickhead owners like to hold host cities hostage by constantly threatening to move their teams if the area's inhabitants are unwilling to spend on new stadiums).

Under the watch of a Jew, the NHL has inexplicably moved numerous franchises south, mostly to sate strivers at the expense of populist interest and cultural continuity (hockey is by far the most popular in Canada but that hasn't stopped Dallas and Nashville from getting teams)

Quick note to ignore ARG poll of NH. They have a terrible track record from 2012. Their late polls suggested that Romney would win NH, FL, IA, CO, VA, and NC, while Obama would only get OH and NV. National poll was tied.

They must be getting fed by the GOP slush funds to make candidates look better in poll aggregators, and to give the media something good to talk about. Not a legit polling outfit.

WBUR did well in 2012 (now showing Trump +1), but their poll was done by UNH rather than MassInc.

The way Nate Silver keeps making these unforced errors is a nice little encapsulation of the way the stars keep aligning in the glorious Current Year. I've occasionally encountered people who try to cite Silver's election forecast as an authoritative source ("The math says Trump just has an 8% chance of winning! Some Jewy nerd said so on the internet so it must be true!") and I always enjoy pointing them to his fall 2015 claims that Trump had a 2% chance of winning the nomination. What a pathetic failure. Frankly your blog has had much more on-point election coverage all year.

New electoral vote map from the Trump campaign themselves in one of the many e-mails they keep spamming me on a daily basis. The Trump campaign now considers Minnesota in play and considers Nevada, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and Maine to be leaning Trump right now. I assume this is coming from internal polling. Not sure what metrics they determine as to what is gray or light red but a couple days ago, they had Minnesota in blue.

Any Minnesota readers need to do what they can to get friends and family to go vote for Trump. Even if gray just means margin of error of five points or whatever, we want to make these states as purple as possible even if it is a long shot.